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Someone please give me the skinny on micro-chipping

Fletcher has an appointment to get neutered on Aug. 13th (one day after turning 6 months) I wanted to get him micro-chipped but I have not done my research on them. I live in the US so if you have your dog micro-chipped please share your input on them. I'm starting my research by asking you. My vet office does not offer any and I was not able to chat with my vet about them but I do know they will happily do them. Tell me what brand you went with and why.

Our vet used resQ.
We have a chip in Henry, and a tag on his collar that says he's chipped to please call the 800 # to return him to his owners. We also have reward stamped on the back of his name tag. I'm hoping it's enough incentive to have him be returned of god forbid he ever gets lost.

But that's not really answering your questions.

The idea of the chip is that if he is bought into the animal shelter he gets scanned, and you get notified.

Wrigley had his micro-chip inserted when they neutered him about a month ago. Our's is thru AVID.
Same thing as what Shari said..has an 800# on his tag that someone calls.
Not sure that any one company is better than another. They all pretty much do the same thing.
They just register the Micro=chip number in their data base. ( The Vet's office has it as well)
It can be set up that they will notify the VET and the Vet will call you ( at no cost)..or that the company will call YOU directly ( to which there is a fee).
Inserting the micro-chip is painless. It can be done at any time & only takes a minute.
Like Shari said..it only works if someone "finds" your dog & is willing to bring the dog back to be scanned.
It won't work for tracking a dog if lost. ( I'm sure you already knew that)

We also have a tag w/ his name & our address & phone on his collar as well.
We do not have a reward set up...but that is an excellent idea.

Not all microchips are the same!! In the US different brands use a different number of digits. This is fine as long as fletcher stays in the US his whole life. If there is even the remotest chance he might join you on a vacation abroad (I met people at the USDA waiting room today taking pets on vacations to France, Guatemala, and el Salvador) then you will NEED a 15 digit chip - or you can just lug your own personal scanner around for going through customs, expensive and heavy.

The brand my dogs have is HomeAgain, it has an 800 number to call like all the other companies. They use snoopy in their ads.

There are probably other 15 digit microchip companies, that's just the one my vet stocked.

It's definitely worth doing. In the event that someone ever finds and keeps or steals fletcher you can prove he isn't just a similar looking dog, he is YOURS; a collar can just be slipped right off.

Sophie is micro-chipped through HomeAgain, because that is the company our veterinarian uses. If memory serves me, there is a fee to have the chip inserted and a small annual fee to keep her in the database. You can read more at the HomeAgain web site.

I definitely think getting a dog micro chipped is important. It obviously doesn't guarantee that someone will take him in to be scanned, but if they take him to a vet or a shelter then they will definitely get scanned there. When we were getting Sonny neutered I was going back and forth about the micro chip because I had questions if it can cause health risks like cancer, but I didn't find substantial evidence of health risks and decided that the micro chip is a must. We are VERY careful with Sonny and I don't think that there is any way he could get lost, but the reality is that dogs get lost, stolen every day and I want to make sure that we have added protection to find Sonny if this ever happens to us. We didn't have an option with what brand to go with. My vet uses HOME AGAIN and I have been very happy with them and the information that I got about them.

Sonny also always wears his tags with our home information and we also have REWARD written on a tag as an incentive to return our pup.

1 in 3 pets goes missing during its lifetime, and without proper ID, 90% never return home.

This is the statistic that really solidified my decision to get Sonny microchipped. It was stamped on the front of our Home Again packet. Obviously tags can serve the same purpose, but I think the microchip is important if for some reason their collar and tags comes off.

Not all microchips are the same!! In the US different brands use a different number of digits. This is fine as long as fletcher stays in the US his whole life. If there is even the remotest chance he might join you on a vacation abroad (I met people at the USDA waiting room today taking pets on vacations to France, Guatemala, and el Salvador) then you will NEED a 15 digit chip - or you can just lug your own personal scanner around for going through customs, expensive and heavy.

The brand my dogs have is HomeAgain, it has an 800 number to call like all the other companies. They use snoopy in their ads.

There are probably other 15 digit microchip companies, that's just the one my vet stocked.

It's definitely worth doing. In the event that someone ever finds and keeps or steals fletcher you can prove he isn't just a similar looking dog, he is YOURS; a collar can just be slipped right off.

Hmmm...didn't realize that. We won't be going anywhere across the ocean..but good to know this. *thanks*
And yes..ours is 15 digits as well.

Just a reminder on microchips. Have your vet scan your dog when you bring them in for appointments to make sure the chip is still in good working order and being read properly. Over time, chips can sometimes shift and can no longer be found when trying to scan. It happened to Sydney and I had to get him rechipped. His vet said it is pretty common.